Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-03-Speech-2-615-000"
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"en.20120703.24.2-615-000"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barnier, on our agenda this week is a legislative own-initiative report on the subject of access to basic banking services. Parliament makes clear and detailed proposals from its perspective about what the Commission’s legislative initiative could and should look like.
The first specific proposal concerns the schedule. A very large majority of the members of the main committee responsible, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, believes that we should not waste any more time unnecessarily on this subject. Therefore, we are calling on the Commission to submit a legislative proposal to Parliament by January 2013. I think that we are working along the same lines as Mr Barnier.
We are of the opinion that the EU must make it possible for the 30 million citizens who have not yet had a bank account of their own to become part of the normal financial system. Without a bank account, things which the rest of us take for granted soon become insoluble problems. Renting a flat, signing a contract with an electricity supplier or joining the modern world of work are almost impossible in most countries unless you have a bank account. We believe that all of this should not be allowed to fail simply because the banks are aiming to maximise their profits. To quote the report: banks also have a responsibility for society. We will only have a functioning social market economy and a modern internal market when the banks genuinely take on this responsibility. However, let us be honest about the situation. Many citizens no longer trust the EU to achieve these goals. When it comes to the crunch, as it has in the current crisis, for the majority of citizens, these are just empty words. They know that the EU is supporting the banks with large rescue packages and many of them feel as if they have been left out in the cold. At least that is the impression that more and more citizens of more and more countries in the European Union have.
The report which we will be voting on tomorrow was not originally planned as an own-initiative report. If the majority of the Commissioners had stuck to the Commission’s plan, today we would be able to present the citizens with the results of the negotiations. Work could already have begun on establishing the right of consumers throughout Europe to an account or these accounts could even be a reality already.
We regard the recommendation that the Commission has sent to the Member States as disappointing. Many of the responses from the Member States to the request and to the Commission’s country reports are more akin to satire than to a sensible policy which is relevant to the citizens. In order to understand this, we need to remind ourselves of one thing. The question of access to bank accounts involves business interests, which is quite normal. These are interests which could hardly be more different as far as their opportunities for influence are concerned. Therefore, politicians must be responsible for ensuring a fair and socially desirable balance of interests. That is our job as politicians and as Members of Parliament.
I cannot cover all the aspects of the report here. I simply want to highlight briefly what I believe are a few key points. One of these is cost. A basic account should be provided free of charge or at least at a reasonable charge. This is what the report says. In order to ensure that this is the case, the Member States should set a mandatory upper limit. The Commission should also investigate the possibility of an EU-wide upper limit for charges on a basic account, because we will not reach our target group without clear regulations on costs.
Access is another important point. We must keep the bureaucratic obstacles to a minimum for consumers who rely on a basic account. Financial exclusion goes hand in hand with social exclusion. Another key point is subsidiarity. A directive would enable us to take the individual features of each country into account. We believe that the Member States would be best placed to define potential exceptions if as many of the banks as possible were covered by the directive.
Finally, I would like to give my sincere thanks to the members of the negotiating team, to the chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, to the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and also to Mr Barnier for our very effective and constructive collaboration. This definitely made a major contribution to the success of the report."@en1
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